Mental Health Matters - self confidence

Well. Gotta love that intro. Well, you don't gotta love it, but I certainly love it because, you know, DM Foss did a great job. I said, hey, do something so I have something to throw up here, and he did. Welcome to Mental Health Matters, formerly known as Suicide Prevention Saturday, but we can't say that on YouTube because otherwise they cut our live. So hopefully the bots will not do that to us today. Why are we here? Because 2 of every 3 gun deaths you hear about are suicides, and if we want to save lives, we need to talk about mental health. So happy Saturday, everybody. Thank you for joining us tonight, and if you're watching the replay, welcome back, or whatever time of day it happens to be for you is the right time for you to be listening to this. So what is tonight's topic? We are going to talk about self-confidence, something that most of us lack more than most people realize. Now, as someone who was picked on, bullied, all of those things as a child, it's like DJ once talked to me about my neckline, and so now I have to fix my neckline. So DJ, this is for you, so it's not crooked. We should have done that before we started. Work in progress. So Self-confidence, what is it? Well, confidence in yourself. What does that mean? Yeah, that's a good question. Matter of fact, for the 3 or 4 of you out there that are watching— oh no, now it says 10. A minute ago when I looked, it said there's like 3 people here. What does self-confidence mean to you? I am curious because self-confidence probably means different things to different people. And here is the short version. Self-confidence is your belief in yourself to accomplish something. Pretty simple, right? However, as human beings, we accomplish many things all day long. If you woke up this morning, got out of bed, you accomplished something. If you turned on your computer or your phone so you can watch this, you you accomplish something. As humans, you accomplish a lot every stinking day just to get through the day, and nothing heroic, nothing spectacular, just eating, sleeping, um, eating, sleeping. Yeah, honestly, that's all you gotta do. Wake up, go to sleep, put some fuel in there, and you're good. That will allow you to survive, and you will have accomplished surviving. Now, self-confidence. What else do we think of? So DJ, I know we just talked about this, but if anyone gives me their, uh, their definition of what they think self-confidence is— oh my goodness, I've been quiet for too long this afternoon. I only had to teach one class today. So, uh, DJ, feel free to throw it up on the screen and I will read it so I don't have to look at the stars so I don't get distracted by something else. So accomplishing your own self-confidence. Some of us are really confident in the things that we do. And if you had to name one or two things that make you think someone is confident, what would it be? Yeah, there's going to be a lag here because it'll take a little bit for folks to catch up because there's always a lag between the live and what you get to see. B, it's like, what do you think of when you think of confidence? And I can immediately think of physical attributes when someone is confident, right? And I think of our military, for example, right? Uh, if you see someone in the military or any type of guard— because it's like I said military and then immediately thought about Buckingham Palace. And the guards that are standing out front of Buckingham Palace with their giant, um, hats on and their bright red jackets and their very square shoulders and all of those things. And to me, that's sort of a confidence. And now I'm gonna go to the comments. Maybe we accept— all right, DJ, I'm not gonna lie, I am currently broken. Um, because I don't seem to have the— thank you. Oh, that's so funny. Um, I was about to do that one. All right, so Taryn, especially puts me in check over my stance and how I carry myself. Yes, in shooting, one of the things I teach is shoulders back, head up, and to me that is definitely a confidence thing. However, mechanically, when we are shooting, it's also a balance thing. Because, um, shoulders up, back, head up allows us to, um, breathe better. I don't know if you see this. There's so many things. I told you I'm gonna try to stick to my, um, outline. I may or may not. This may go along, this may go short. You know, GT3 is here, so if we go along, nobody cares. Um, I mean, it doesn't matter, but so What matters for confidence? There's the inner voice inside of you, right? It says, yes, you can. I can do this. I know how to do this. And it is amazing how fragile that little voice is. And I'm going to give you a very simple example. Ready? 2 2. Equals 4. We agree 2 2 4? Okay, I'm pretty sure 2 2 4. I think most of you are probably pretty sure 2 2 4. However, here's how fragile our little voice in there can be. If I question you enough, And I say, are you sure? Are you really, really sure? Well, are there ways that 2 2 could not be 4? Mm-hmm. If you're in North Korea, that's when 2 2 will not be 4. 2 2 will be 1. And did you know why? I am asking. If you know the answer, feel free to answer in the chat. That's perfectly fine. So the current leader in North Korea— this is a story I've heard, and you know I have that trust but verify thing on my, my, uh, my poster on my thing, and I can't verify this, but this is the story I heard. According to the leader of North Korea, he has some very fancy title, something like godlike, but I can't remember what it is exactly. He says that 1 1 1, and in his reasoning for this is because he saw one drop of rain come down the window and run into another drop of rain, and poof, there was just one drop of rain. So 1 1 became 1. So that means that 2 2 can become one because he said so. Now, for those of you who still know that 2 2 4, we can always question whether or not what we know is the truth and what we know is real. And no matter how solid we feel inside, it usually doesn't take much for us to get swayed, bent, pushed a little bit in the wrong direction, and that's our own inner confidence. Now, how do we fix this? How do we build this? Well, number one, it's not broken. One of the things in life is that we're not broken. We're just always learning something new. And a lot of us will beat ourselves up. And I'm saying a lot of us, you know, I'm just talking about myself, right? I'm sure you don't do these things, but if you did, And here is my thought that when we beat ourselves up, when we're not sure, when we feel less than, because feeling less than is the opposite of self-confidence, just so we're clear on what we're looking for. When we get rocked of our self-confidence, it's easy for us to fall down. And there are the words that we say in our heads that matter. And understanding that no, we're not broken, we just have to learn a different skill set and as we go remembering the rules of how do you stand up tall, head up, shoulders back, all of that, right? We know you lose something, you're on a sports team, I don't know anything about football, but I know the boys that are here watching love their football. And when their team wins, their heads go up, they yell and scream. I was at the casino last weekend, so, you know, I did hear a lot of that at the— in the bar listening to— I don't know what game we were watching, but there were people who were winning and losing money on that. So shoulders back, head up, loud noises— that's our confidence, that's our yes, let's go get them. Now, if we're not feeling confident, what do we do? Ah, head down, shoulders rounded. You feel the lack of confidence going on in your body, and it's hard. It's harder. Do you know why? Physically, why? Because once our shoulders come forward, we now are crushing our rib cage. And what does our rib cage do for us? It gives us oxygen. If we squish it, we can't get as much oxygen. If we can't get as much oxygen, we can't have that confidence, we can't have that energy, because without being opened so we can fill as much oxygen in here as possible, our physiology is busted. So our confidence comes in here. From what we're saying. Our confidence shows out here by what we are doing. And this is what— this is the key point I want to share with you guys tonight. You absolutely can fake it till you make it. Because if you are having a bad day, if your sports team happened to lose and you're feeling sad because you just lost money on it, or just because you're sad that they lost, remember to Turn the switch, head comes up, shoulder comes back. But Brooke, I feel like crap. Why do I want to look like I'm confident? Because you're allowed to feel like crap. We just don't want you to stay there for too long. And with that, DJ, my friend, we're almost at that sort of semi-halfway point.

So if you would like to do a lovely roll call, that would be good. Love to do that. First in the room, and who was it? Crabby Turtle. Glad he's always out there. Got SorryFan93 out there in the crowd. So is Jamie JH5869. Abigail Sorcha Finnegan is in the room. Taryn Gomez had that comment up from her earlier. G23 Reviews is in the room. Talk about the Seahawks out in the text chat.

Mike Ballinger, uh, the last one to come in. Got some regular folks out there. Glad to see them. Perfect timing. Um, so yeah, DJ and I were talking a little bit on the front of the, this, and yes, Taryn, have you told me how wonderful I am? Ah, last time we talked, maybe. Um, I still, we still need that coffee thing though, because that didn't work out last time, but we will get there. I promise. Um, thank you for that comment. All right. So I'm glad to see Mike is here because one of the things I wanted to share with everybody, and it didn't matter whether Mike showed up or not. But now that he's here, I'm going to share in front of him. So I'm going to read you the text that Mike sent me today. I'm winning. No nicotine for 28 days. No cigarettes since December 10th. After listening to my friend's daughter, my friend's daughter talk at his funeral, and now another funeral on Friday of another good friend and their kids talking at the funeral, gave me a good shove to make sure this happens. My kids need me to be around for as long as I can. Enjoy your day, it's going to be a great one. So how awesome is that? And to catch everybody up, um, Mike is preparing for surgery and the surgeon said you need to stop quitting because when you smoke, your immune system kind of craps out. So in order to recover well from surgery, uh, he needed to stop his smoking. So for those of you who don't know, quitting smoking is probably the hardest thing out there, uh, as far as quitting. I was a smoker for 6— wait, this way— 6 months. 6 months, right? Because at the tender age of 14 or so, give or take. It's— I had friends, I had my mom. My mom smoked, a bunch of my friends smoked. They said, you don't understand, you don't understand, you've never been a smoker. I'm like, fine, I will start smoking and see whether or not I can quit. So I started smoking at 14, 15, I don't remember. Um, and I smoked all summer long, and then I got fall semester and we're at midterms. And at the time we could still smoke at school because that's how old I am. Um, and we went to the butt room. We had to go to the butt room to smoke, right? And so I went down to the butt room and it's pulling an all-nighter for studying for my midterms, and I literally sat there and smoked an entire pack of Marlboro Reds. And I said, huh, this is stupid. I'm gonna stop doing this. So 6 months had gone by of me smoking, like I said, through the summer. So June, July, August, September, October, November, maybe about when midterms were. And, uh, I quit smoking then after 6 months of smoking. Don't you know that was like 1984, many decades ago, literally. And there are times when I'm just like, hmm, I could use a cigarette. Usually has to do with drinking, honestly. Or I will smell someone's cigarette, I'm like, um, I could do that again. So kudos to you, Mike, um, because Mike, I can give you the stats, and I think if I scroll back up here, I could give you the stats as well. But, uh, Mike has not been smoking for, um, uh, 6 months. Mike has been smoking for many, many decades, and I'm looking to see if I can find it. Oh yeah, there it is. Yeah, there you go. Um, Mike— oops, sorry, DJ, go ahead. I'll stop touching things. Just like, uh, 44 years, uh, 20 a day, not easily done. Professional help, addiction psychologist, and some meds, right? So, um, just so people know, help comes from everywhere around you, just like self-confidence. So You have to understand it really comes from you because all the amazing coaches I've had in my life, even with all the help that he's getting, he is the one doing the actual hard work to get it done. Because coaches and friends and family can help you, give you resources, but you're the one who has to make the decisions to do the thing. And Mike is doing the thing because it's important that he actually makes it. Uh, yeah, I'm gonna— TJ, I'm gonna throw up hillbilly, so don't, don't touch that one because that's funny right there. Um, started smoking in 1984 because Van Halen had a baby smoking on the album cover. Yeah, funny story about that. I actually was dating, um, Sammy Hagar's son in 1984 also. Um, and I think that was just before he became part of Van Halen, but that was— that's a whole nother story that we'll have to talk about someday, but not today. Because, you know, it's 20 after already. All right, um, but yeah, it was a cute baby on the album cover. It's true. All right, for those of you who are not old enough, go look it up. It is a kind of— it's a cute little cherub thing. But all right, so self-confidence and self-worth. Because what did that comment that I just read off of my text tell you about Mike? He understands his self-worth. He understands how important it is for him to be here for his wife and his children and all of those, um, all of those things. And I don't know how to stand the smell of tobacco smoke. Yeah, so here's the funny thing. When I was 18, 19, I was a bartender, and I would come home after a night— and again, this is back in the '90s, so people were still smoking out in public all the time. And I didn't even notice until the next morning because I would come home, drop my clothes on the floor, crawl into bed, wake up the next morning, and I'd be like, oh, what is that smell? And generally it was totally my clothes from being at the bar. So yeah, there are times when tobacco smoke is horrendous. However, here's the thing, not everybody has the same taste in anything. Oh wait, is, is, uh, G-Webs out there? I don't think I saw G-Webs out there, but we'll talk about him even though he's not here. Um,.45 caliber versus 9mm— some people don't think that there's any conversation to be had..45 is the only way to go, right? Uh, so yeah, tobacco smoke— some people it's horrible, for other people it's like, ooh, an aphrodisiac. And It's no different than wine or alcohol or any of those other things out there, coloring for example, or art or music. What makes you happy is not the same thing that makes the person next to you happy necessarily and yeah, so we could go down a whole thing, it's like I've been talking to a lot of different type of clientele as of late, even in the wintertime, I'm still relatively busy. And I've had unfortunately more domestic violence people come through and it's one of those things where somebody else's point of view shouldn't matter to you that much, in that you need to be happy with where you are and what you're doing for yourself. Number 1 goal, do stuff that makes you happy and that increases your health, right? Because I am sure— well, I shouldn't say these things, but when you're dealing with an addiction, you do things that make you happy, but they do not fuel your health. And the challenge with these things, um, is that your normal is nobody else's. So when you're worried about your self-confidence, when you're taking care of yourself, when you're choosing the things that make you happy. Like, Taryn's out there, and I know Taryn loves her coffee. She literally has a coffee mug that's as big as her head, or at least that's what the picture looks like, because I've not seen this thing in person, which is why she and I need to do coffee at some point. I have to go to her house for that though. Um, and comparing ourselves to others is never a good idea because you and I have a different life. You and I have different trauma in our past, because I am sorry, there are none of us who are getting out of this life without trauma at some point in time. And your trauma and my trauma have molded us slightly different, and there are things that I can handle that you cannot, and there are things that you can handle that I cannot. My husband always makes fun of me because I can watch things like Lord of the Rings and the orcs stabbing each other and all of that, but I can't watch a gangster movie, because gangsters really exist and they really do break kneecaps and things like that. So anyway, um, yeah, let's see. So Abigail likes the smell of cannabis smoke and Irish whiskey. Saria Fan can't— any, any of them. Or wait, tobacco smoke, I think. Oh, GT3. Yeah, see, this is— yeah, DJ's like, you're a work in progress, leave them alone. I will try, I swear. And that's the other thing, smell. Oh my goodness. This is the highway to your emotions. You can smell 20, 30, 50, 100 times more things than you can see or taste. Like when you smell things, it goes, your olfactory nerve goes into your brain and has these crazy connections in your brain that affect your dopamine and all of those fun things. It's one of those things, like for those of you who've ever sold a house, one of the things the realtors will tell you is go bake cookies before you have a showing or go bake some bread before you have a showing because that smell is one of those things that makes people so happy because it's food, it's comfort, it's all of those things. So yeah, no, smell is crazy. Like, like you guys are saying in the chat, it's like it makes you super happy or it makes you totally disgusted. And those are significant visceral feelings, and it's because your nose has a ton of connections in your brain. It's— if you've ever gotten into wine tasting, for example, the sniffing of the wine can tell you so much more about it than the tasting, because your tongue, it's kind of O-ring. It's got what y'all know— sweet, sour, salt, bitter. 4 things, 4 parts. Your nose has it all. It's amazing. Uh, yeah, so anyway, um, lavender and vanilla sage. I've never smelled vanilla sage, but sage I've got. And, uh, yeah, I can, I can do gangster mafia movies that don't have the breaking of the kneecaps. I like crime thrillers as well. I'm actually watching Prodigal Son right now. It's a little bit creepy, but it's sort of fun. Once in a while I get time off and actually sit on my couch and be a veg. So, all right, helpful. Sorry, I was, I was about to do, say something else, but then this popped up from Taryn, uh, work with blood, bone marrow, and dissect tumors for a living, but show me an eye injury and I'm done. Yeah, so we all have our things, right? Uh, Jamie can also join us with the gangster movies. And like I said, so here's the thing, I will do a good gangster movie as long as it's like gangsters in their suits and all the talking and talking about whacking people, but I can't watch the whacking of the people. Um, So there is that. All right, so circle back to, um, yeah, I was about to say self-defense. No, self-confidence. Yeah, can you tell I've been teaching today? Um, I've been talking a lot about self-defense lately because domestic violence kind of needs that kind of training. So again, a different time next week. I am supposed to have a guest on. However, I don't have a guest yet. There are a couple people that I'm trying to get on the line and get up and running. So maybe you will see me do an actual interview next week, maybe we will not. I am not sure. I will do my best, however, because it's nice because I don't know, that Walk the Talk America one back in December made me super happy and it was fun, and I think it's nice for you guys to get someone else's opinion besides mine. So self-confidence number one, If you're not feeling confident and your head is down, your shoulders are down, and you're all wrapped up, by all means, fake it till you make it. Shoulders back, head up. Take a nice big breath. Let your body have all that oxygen it's meant to have. Just start there, because just making that decision to do one good thing for yourself, that one little deep breath where you get a little more oxygen, that's where you build on the next thing that you do for yourself to make yourself feel good and happy and proud and all of that. And who Who knows, maybe Taryn shall be my next interviewee since she is here. I think she and I talked about it, and I've got some psychiatrists and psychologists and some counselors that have come into my, my world, and I keep saying, would you like to do this? And I think I have a new one that might do that. So we will see what happens on that thing. All decisions you make— this is why I think AA is so successful for so many. Again, one size never fits all. There are people who have been saved by AA because of their one day at a time thing, and there are other people that doesn't work for them, and that's okay because they go off to find other things that do. So with one day at a time, do something nice for yourself that gives you a little pat on the back that says good job. Uh, my newest favorite thing for this year is the rule of three. Because there are already 5 million things for you and I to do every stinking day just to stay alive, it's really easy to say, oh, wow, if I did this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, then I actually done one more thing. However, the rule of three for me this year is give myself credit for three things that I've done today. So what What did I do today? I got up, um, I got dressed, I taught a class. Good job. Everything else is bonus time. Everything else is bonus material. Doing this show, etc., and so forth. Because by giving yourself that pat on the back for getting those 3 things done and letting the dog out— that was the other thing that I did earlier, but now he's being a jerk— um, everything else is bonus. Because what does this do? This gives your brain the opportunity to say, good job. It allows your brain to say, okay, we got 3 things done and we agree that these 3 things are what matter today and the rest of it is bonus. So now we start stacking in our bonus area. So look at all the additional stuff that we did. I hope that makes sense. So, anywho, that's what I have for you. Shoulders back, head up. If you're not feeling all that great, give yourself that oxygen. Oh, look what DJ went and did!

For those of you who don't know, DJ, would you like to explain your little, uh, your picture there? That's the COVID of Van Halen's 1984. Thanks, Hillbilly, for bringing that up. I went ahead and grabbed that, throw it up for this one, and then I'll go back to my usual one. But had to get— had to be done. You were telling people like go look it up later.

I knew by the end they might forget about it, so easy way to remind right there.

There you go. So, all right, my friend, would you like to go ahead and bring us out? I would, and I got two quotes for the chat this week. One of them comes from somebody that almost all of us know, and he offered it in a moment where I needed it badly. And so shout out for the following: "Keep looking up, not down." Super simple right there. And I guess I'm super simple, and I needed something that direct to remind me to keep looking up. Another one comes from Oscar Wilde. Probably fewer of us know Oscar Wilde, right? Um, said, "Be yourself. Everybody else is already taken." And the more you practice being you and less what you expect people to to be what you think other people want of you, I guess is what I'm trying to say, then they're probably going to end up liking you for the qualities that you will shine through with the brightest. And the ones that you try to fake are the ones that people see most clearly sometimes. And those are the scales in our armor that are easily defeated. So, you know, protect yourself by just being yourself. I think is a decent way to run your rig. And if somebody doesn't dig what you do, you don't have to dig them. And there are people around who will eventually come to your side and find value in who you are just for being yourself. So thanks for being yourselves, and thanks for being here for another week. I want to thank everyone out there that didn't participate in the text chat just for listening. Listening is an important thing, and I'm glad you came to do that. Crabby Turtle was here, so was SorryFan93, JamieJH5869, Abigail Source Finnegan was in the room. Taryn Gomez was out there, so was G23 Views. Mike Ballinger, keep it up, great work, Mike. Hillbilly Up is out there, so is Vanessa Kitty. And I will try to drop B2A— he's late, but he's saying hello to everyone. Hello, B2A. I'll try to get that link to Hillbilly Up's chat. He comes up next.

And everybody, be safe, have fun, take care of yourselves and your crew. And rock work.